Red Widow: Agents of SHIELD
by LEOLEO23
Summary: Genderswap!Natasha Romanoff. Nathaniel Romanova is her engineered twin. In the womb of their mother, originally it was going to be twin girls. Their father had the second girl modified into a boy, hence, Nathaniel. After being promoted to a Level 8 S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, he begrudgingly joins Coulson's band of miscreants, unaware of all the secrets festering on the bus.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

The warehouse was just under the ballroom. If I focused hard enough, the sound of footsteps could be heard over the jibber-jabber of the Russian men, who had abducted me. I had to let them. It was the only way they were going to bring me to my target: A Mr. Yevonn. He had stolen something S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted first, and I was here to make sure they got it back from him.

The first bodyguard, the one who handcuffed me, trudged up to where I was bound. He threw his hand out, waiting for me to flinch. When I didn't, it angered him. A vein forked down his face, temple thrumming.

I screamed when he struck me. It wasn't enough force to actually elect a scream, but it prevented further damage. He smiled, baring teeth so white it hurt to look at him. I rolled my red hair off my face, tipping my head up go glare with my eyes wide and childlike. The gaping hole behind me was a thirty metre fall, at best. I had survived worst. Of course, they didn't know that. Mr. Yevonn was too heavily guarded for me to get him alone. He might clam up if I took out his three bodyguards in front of him. I was going to have to play the victim and coax the location of the stolen object out of him, which would take longer.

Yevonn was a short, balding man. What little hair he had was puffed and grey. Wrinkles blemished the skin stretched over his sharp bones. Beady black eyes, a mouth like a knife and eyebrows like caterpillars made him look like the wrong kind of doll. In a charcoal suit with a red power tie, running for congressmen was almost a given by the looks of it.

"Do you want to tell me where she is?" He inched closer, voice lispy, eyes raking my body in a way that made my skin crawl. Unusual. The last person that could do that was a single look was… I didn't need to say his name. Vowed I wouldn't.

"Who's she?" Playing dumb seemed like a good idea. Instead it earned another teeth-jarring slap. Bodyguard number two was well-built. He eyed the length legs. I spread them, seemingly subconsciously. His smile widened.

"Do not play the fool, redhead." Mr. Yevonn snarled, bending over at the waist to fish a silk handkerchief out of his right breast pocket. When he touched it to the blood at the corner of my mouth, I did wince and flinch away, to which he laughed, echoingly. I shared his smile, chapped lips cracking. His eyebrows curved together, face distraught in pain. "One offers you nothing but kindness, and you take advantage of it?"

"I didn't do anything you wouldn't expect—"

"Silence!" Mr. Yevonn screeched, yapping and bouncing like an angered little dog. "Speak when you are spoken to, man-whore."

Grinding my teeth together to bite my tongue, I skimmed past Mr. Yevonn's shoulder to the third bodyguard: The one I was scared of the most. He was thin and wiry, with peroxide blonde hair swept back and eyes the colour of the sea during a storm. He was quiet, listening intently but never opening his pretty pink lips to speak. As far as I could tell, he had three weapons; the knife he held between his fingers, and two guns under a bulge in his black trenchcoat and another in his right pantleg—both, most probably, under holsters.

Mr. Yevonn brought my attention back to him with a snap of his fingers in my face. "I will ask you one more time." He paused, swallowing. "Where is the Black Widow?"

In quiet defiance, I turned my face. The bonds that tied my hands and legs to the wooden chair under me were rope, thick and gnawed from use. Bodyguard #3's knife would help with that. He just needed a push to be interested in coming on over here.

Mr. Yevonn made a grab for my chin. Snapping my face back to his, he pressed his thin nose past my stringy red locks, and breathed into my ear, "You have ten seconds to give up her location before my… associates over there have their sport with you."

Releasing my face, he stood back, admiring his handi-work. Grinning from ear-to-ear, Yevonn counted down from ten in Russian. Each number brought the three bodyguards closer to us. When he reached one, he snapped his thick sausage fingers and spun on his heel. "Make him regret not telling us, boys." He said.

Bodyguard #3 smiled. He was the first to reach me. Swinging one leg over me so that there were two on either side, he sat down hard enough to make me squirm.

"Oh, we're going to have some fun with you tonight, bitch." He trailed that knife, deliberately at his leisure, down the flat planes of pale, chiselled muscle of my chest. Hooking the tip of the blade inside the last button above the waistband of my leather pants, he tugged on the white linen shirt so all the buttons popped off, breaking open the shirt. His gloved hands grazed over my shoulders to gently tug the lapels away from my collarbones.

Mr. Yevonn was almost at the gate of the warehouse. I had to get his attention to keep him here. Bodyguard #2 was at my right, testing my bonds, while bodyguard #1 was chatting with Yevonn, walking him to the door. I was almost out of time.

In the reasonably quiet, an ear-shattering ringing ricocheted off the slate walls, bouncing back to echo the noise. A smirk overtook my face, and I bent my head lower so my hair fell to cover my face.

Yevonn stopped. "Who's mobile is that?" He deadpanned. "Who's?" He demanded. The first bodyguard whirled around, following suit to project innocence on his behalf. The one behind me rose (I could tell because of the shadow falling over me) and juggled his pockets, jingling his cellphone, keys, wallet.

The one straddling my legs dipped his nose into the crook of my shoulder, taking a deep whiff. Swapping the knife into his left hand, he prickled long fingers down my treasure trail to seize the phone jammed just above the zipper.

"It's my phone." I called out, gesturing with my head to the blue hue that highlighted my pale skin, phone alit. It gained the expected response. Mr. Yevonn, despite bodyguard #1's pleas, marched back inside the pool of light cast by the bare-hanging bulb above.

"What are you waiting for, Adrian?" He asked bodyguard #3, in flawless Russian. "Answer it?"

"You want him to answer the whore's phone?" Bodyguard #2 questioned, cocking his head in distaste. He'd won a kick in the groin for that.

"He has allies?" Bodyguard #1 strolled in behind his boss.

"Hush." Adrian beseeched. "I shall answer it." In English, he said, "Hello, who is calling?"

Adrian tossed the knife to bodyguard #1 and levered his weight off me with his hand on my shoulder. He was walking too far for me to hear, but there was a muffled, angry spokesperson on the other end. Adrian cringed. "She's shouting."

"She?" Mr. Yevonn's eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

"Who is speaking?" Adrian asked, then, catching his manners, "May I ask."

Another lengthy pause with witch-cries on the other end.

"She says it's his," He jerked his thumb in my direction, "manager."

"Let there be no fuss, Adrian, not tonight." Mr. Yevonn took the phone from Adrian's hand and held it up to his ear. "Listen, miss. Your employee is currently tending to the customer's needs, and I booked him for the full night. Unless this is an emergency worth retracting my money, I suggest you…" There was a gap. His back was to me, bodyguard #2 too afraid to move closer, so he stuck by the side of my chair, fingers kneading into the wood.

Yevonn's voice broke. "S-She wants to speak with you." He handed me the phone. I perked up my eyebrows. When the message wasn't translated, I raked my green eyes up and down my tied-up form. "Oh, yes." He thrust out the phone. I caught it between the flat of my shoulder and my cheek.

"What?" I enraged. "I'm on a job, and just about to get the classified Intel."

"Nate." Four people were allowed to call me that: my sister, he who shall not be named, and my two superiors: Director Fury and Commander Maria Hill. It was Hill. "I understand, but there's been a change of plan."

"Really? Who's taking over from this end, Yevonn tied me up but I was just about to interrogate him—"

"Abandon mission, Nate." She pronounced, slowly. "Error code 300-21. Coulson needs you." Error code 300-21 was bad. It meant seriousness about Intel being publically released. Thrown in with a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who was "deceased" meant that Hill wasn't just calling for a chat, which was more often than you'd think. But Coulson? A victim of the Battle of New York, killed by Loki, pre-battle (technically). I knew him. Not well, not particularly. To call him a friend was stretching the mile a bit, but it wasn't like we weren't tagged together for missions. He was a good agent, end of. There was nothing left of him for _me_ to deal with, I hadn't even attended the funeral and Hill wasn't tugging on any heart strings bringing his name into it (we fucked once, maybe twice, before his death. Still, it was a no-strings deal).

I sighed. "Let me put you on hold." I muttered. Yevonn nodded as I made eye contact with him, and made a ditch effort at not coming closer to grab the phone from the crook of my shoulder. I cocked my leg to the left. He still close enough. Lashing out my left leg, bone crunched under my big toe. A hard enough hit just above or just under the knee will break the leg.

Sufficiently, Yevonn dropped to kneel, grovelling in my lap, hand still holding my phone. A shattering head-butt to the thinnest part of his skull—the temple—left him unconscious, sprawled to the side with my phone under his crooked fingers.

Bodyguard #1 was the first to spring into action. He grabbed the top part of the chair, the base of where you lean your spine. Catching him off balance, I tipped to the left. He screamed all the down into the pit, clothes fluttering around him. Silenced by the fall. Adrian's knife gone with him.

A kick in the gut to #2 and he dry-heaved to the side. Wind whistled close to my left ear. I ducked, avoiding the blow. Swinging the chair out, it cracked against his lower spine. Not hard enough to break, but hard enough for him to fall on his ass.

Adrian was pulling out and assembling a gun. He had to drop it to grab the chair still glued to my back. I let my fall weight crest down on the chair, crinkling the wooden leg into Adrian's big toe. The wet, squelching sound was very unpleasant. I didn't give him enough time to cry out. If there's time to scream, there's time to get out a gun and shoot me. I whipped back my head, the bump at the back of my skull bending his nose in half. Blood was to jet out. I swept out for his lower legs with the wooden ones of the chair. The move is kung fu; old, effective and it proves its worth, again.

Bodyguard #2 groaned getting up. I nudged his chest with my shoulder. He stumbled. Yanking up my right knee, he doubled over from the clean cut to his groin. Cupping his balls with his hands, chin bent low, I went for the sensitive spot on the jaw most boxers do, covertly. My left knee slammed into home, and he fell to the dusty floor for the last time, tonight.

Adrian was more skilled than the rest. He dove, not for my legs, like I would have, but for the hard block of wood at my back. As a result, I slid out of the way and Adrian tackled #2, splitting open his head on the cement floor.

Using his propped up back, I flipped up several times in the air, wind breaking all around me, to finally land and shatter the wood on Yevonn's unstirring body. A hand wrapped around one of the lengthier splinters, instinctively.

#2 must have had balls of steel. I knew it wasn't Adrian because of his arms, they weren't clad in leather. His grip was tight, but as he rocked to the left my other hand caught his fingers and twisted. Several snaps were heard, like wishbones repeatedly parted. Wrist now floppy, with the splintered chair leg I strike twice before tossing its ineffectiveness away.

The dropkick is always a dangerous move to do. I overestimated him. My feet plant into his chest without avail. He doesn't catch them. Unfortunately, because of the power behind the kick, and in my legs, I am tossed back onto the flat of my back, and I can't have that. I arched my back as I was split in the air. Hands at my ears to catch the fall, I rocked my body up so my legs, clenched together, were over my head and threw my weight up my well-muscled arms. I was on my feet and running towards him in seconds.

The height of this particular bodyguard was a weapon I had to use against him. Pedalling my hand on his shoulder to sprint up and wrap my legs around his head, I propelled my weight backwards so his body cushioned the blow I received and smoothly converted the head-scissors to my feet. He was left spinning for half a second before being knocked flat on his back. And that's how you could rupture a rib.

Yevonn grunted.

"What to do with you?" I pondered out loud. Grabbing a loose chain for the side of the pit, inches from where I was held, I struck out my palm to the middle of his spine to encourage a head-spinning splat on the metal anchor pipe sticking out from beside the gaping hole. The metal clicked, and he spun around. Ankle in my hand, I tied off the chain several times around his lower leg and pushed him backwards. The loops clinked together until he grunted and cursed in Russian, one last time, before vomiting all over his dead bodygaurd's body. The sound was sickening, and always made me want to throw up. I swallowed it down and picked my phone back up, placing it on my neck whilst filling the buttons through the slick holes in my white shirt.

"Maria? You still there?"

"Where else would I be?"

The familiar banter reminded me of the time we kissed. Once. She tasted like brown sugar and hot syrup. That was before she threw up all over my shoes. Bad Christmas party.

"Maria—"

"_Hill_."

"Yes, I know that's your name, but—"

"I'm your superior first, Nate. Call me Hill."

"You can call me Nate but I can't call you Maria?" I whined.

"Yes." The woman was undeniable infuriating. "We need you to come in and meet your newly assigned team."

"Team?"

"No, _he's_ not on it and neither is Tony, or Steve."

"Natasha?"

"No. Your sister's not on it, either."

I had to laugh as I pushed the warehouse door up. "You really expect me to play nice with the minor-leagues?"

The shit-eating grin was evident in her voice. "Since when was Coulson minor?"

"Maria, don't shit with me."

"Congratulations." She chimed, in a deadly singsong. "You've been promoted to Level 8. Sending you the Coulson file to your phone as we speak. Delete it after memorizing it as always."

"But Maria—Hill, just wait a sec. What do you mean—?"

"Be here in fifteen."

The cutting slashes of the helicopter gliding to a landing tore through the calm sky. "And don't be late." _Click_.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

"_The secret is out. For decades, your organization stayed in the shadows. Hiding the truth. But now we know. They're among us. Heroes. And monsters. The world is full of wonders. We can't explain everything we see, but our eyes are open. So what now? There are no more shadows for you to hide in. Something impossible just happened. What are you going to do about it?"_

Her voice was husky, pleasant. Very vocal and empathetic. Where she mentioned S.H.I.E.L.D., it was snappish. A chip on her shoulder, something unresolved to do with us.

"Who are these people?" I asked, swivelling in the chair. "It's a woman's voice, that's for sure. Do we know who she is, or who her associates are?"

Hill sighed. "Stop asking questions, Nate, this is Coulson's mission for the team. Go see Coulson." She pointed to the door of her office. "Now."

I jutted out my bottom lip. "I still don't see why no one told me about the Coulson folder before today. If I had access to it, why wasn't I aware of it?"

Blue eyes narrowed. "You never asked."

"Where is Coulson?"

"I'm expecting agent Ward any time now," She deliberately checked her watch, "I'll see you in a bit?"

Nodding, I saw myself out, leaving the door open for the agent down the hall. He turned, catching the fluorescent light. The first thing that stuck out was his prominent cheekbones. Walking, the curve and dip into his cheek made me think he might have dimples. He was cleanly-shaven, jawline squared. I looked up from his chin, to the shape of his lips. My eyebrow quirked. His bottom lip was full, nice and shiny, but slightly chapped. His upper lip was deviously sinful. It curved to the outline of a bow, making a V just below his very Roman-looking nose. Burnt umber eyes bore into mine, from below spiked eyelashes. Dark, dark brows and hair fitted the rest of his profile. Closer, I realized just how tall he was, about 6'3". I had to look up at him as I stuck out my hand.

"Agent Nathaniel Romanova." I smiled, bright and cheery. He stopped, obviously shocked. Eyes raking me up and down, once, before he fought the urge to raise his eyebrows, keeping his emotions in check like a good little agent.

His hand slipped into mine, blunt and raspy against my skin, and he squeezed, firmly, pumping once up. "Agent Grant Ward." We broke the shake when we reached the second pump down, letting out hands fall to our sides. He smelled like sandalwood. "You coming from Hill's office?"

I nodded. "Been assigned to the new team. You?"

"Don't know yet." He was looking down at his feet, shuffling them, with his hands in his pockets. There are very few agents I don't know, Grant Ward, unfortunately, was one of them. I knew he was going to be assigned to Coulson's team, and the fact I knew nothing about him made me queasy, very quickly.

Smirking, I decided to push him over the edge.

Rolling my shoulder, I cringed and winced. "Oh, wow, in my last mission that sonofabitch really got my shoulder." I paused, bringing up one hand to claw at my back. "But it's at an angle that I can't really see." Reaching down, I trailed my fingers, featherlight, across his wrist and puckered his hand out of his pressed pants pocket. "Do you mind?"

Ward stuttered for a few moments, before nodding. I turned around, shrugging off my jacket. Ward folded it across his arm, gentlemanly. I unbuttoned only the first three buttons of my shirt, then stretched the fabric over the curve of my shoulder.

"D-Do you need some, uh, help with that?" He asked, boyish charm. Perfect reaction. My toes curled.

"No! I got it." I threaded two more buttons before the collar of the shirt fell past my arm, down halfway to my elbow. "See anything?" I asked, arching my back ever so slightly. Ward surprised me by doing something I never thought anyone would dare.

He touched me.

In my mother's womb, Natasha and I were supposed to be twin girls. Our father, ever the sexist king, wanted a male heir. Through extensive engineering and costly biochemical surgeries, all while I was still growing and in my mother's stomach. He transformed me into a boy. Natasha suffered no consequences from the very risky set of procedures, which the doctors advised our father against. Still, he decided it wasn't good enough for me to just be a boy. Everything about me was modified. Sure, Natasha and I still looked like each other, but the changes he made in me made us two sides of the same coin. One of those changes included my skin—the pheromones produced from simple touch. It's not like I _never_ felt human contact. But at S.H.I.E.L.D., everyone knew my story and were advised not to touch me, more personally than anything.

Ward's palm skimmed my shoulder blade, igniting my nerve endings and sending pleasurable rolls of goose bumps rippling down my spine. A gasp settled in my chest, and breathed outward. I could feel his eyes follow the line of my spine down to my pert ass, then steal himself.

"I'm sorry," He mumbled, taking a step back. "I've been told… my people skills aren't that great."

I dressed myself, quickly, never losing face. "It's fine." The drowsiness of my voice wasn't believable. "I asked you to check on me."

"Right," Ward gestured, then awkwardly patted down the back of his neck. "I didn't see anything."

"That's great."

"Yeah." Ward smiled, shockingly, splitting his hardened face. I froze, unable to cope with the sudden change of stimuli. "Wouldn't want to scar that skin." His smile broke, and he quickly fixed his mistake, "No, I mean anyone's skin, but you're pale. I mean fair!" A smirk broke the surface of my lips.

"Don't you have to see Hill?" I laughed, taking my jacket from his arm, letting my fingers stay on his clothes for half a beat longer than necessary. "She doesn't like slackers."

"And I'm already late, so…" Ward nodded, a simple bob of his head. He was very careful to walk around me, and kept nodding until he was inside Hill's office. She sat on her chair, skimming a manila folder, pretending she hadn't witnessed everything.

A familiar voice settled, and I ripped my eyes away from Ward's walking back (side). There was no responding voice, only a lot of shuffling. Someone talking on the phone. Planting my back against the wall, I slid down the corridor until the turn where Grant came from opened up to me.

Coulson's back, half-shadowed, was visible, but nothing more. "I know, that, Director Fury. Yes, I do… You've said the same thing about Natasha Romanoff… That she's comfortable with anything, so it's not a surprise her twin brother would be, too… No, it won't be a problem… Our history's just that, history. Listen, Grant's just come in, so I'll have to go greet him with Hill… You, too… Bye."

I walked down the corridor, just to walk back up and look natural, like I wasn't just eavesdropping on his conversation with Director Fury. "You look pretty good for a dead man."

Phil Coulson was dressed in his Sunday best, white shirt striped under the dark suit jacket and dark green tie spotted. Even though age had tried to ware down his face, he was still handsome. Strong jaw, receeding hairline, fine, silky brown hair, wide forehead, rounded up to the base of his skull, nose a little crooked, lips too thin and pink, eyes a chemical mixture of blue, green and grey that made hazel shy. He smiled. He said the same thing he always did when greeting me. "You look pretty manly for a woman."

Falling in step beside me, Coulson asked, "So what have you been up to?"

"Since the Battle of New York? Not much. You?"

"Tahiti." Coulson smiled at my silent, unasked question. "It's a magical place."

Hill's voice was audible outside her office. "That, you'll have to ask agent Coulson."

The bodyguard just inside her doorway, in armour and loaded with a .45 Glock, stiffened.

"Ah, yeah. I'm clearance Level 6. I know that… agent Coulson was killed in action. Before the Battle of New York." Ward said. "Got the full report."

"Why is this corner so dark?" I asked, as Coulson and I walked through it, into Hill's office.

"Welcome to Level 7." Coulson said, dramatically.

Ward flew out of his chair. I noticed the dark squares behind him, with the white outlining, and how they seemed to highlight the reddish-purple bruise on his cheek. Ward's white stripped red tie swung out his jacket, his hands supporting himself up on the desk.

"Sorry, that corner was really dark and I couldn't help myself." Coulson said, smiling innocently childlike, adorably. Ward looked to me, then Hill. "I think there's a bulb out." He said, never losing that smile.

* * *

><p>The elevator doors parted, and I was relieved. Two out of the three people inside I trusted, and even though Ward seemed to be a model taking time off to work for S.H.I.E.L.D., I didn't know enough about him to trust him. Dirt on him was what I needed, and dirt was what I was going to get. I analysed every bit of him, his posture, the way that he held his hands together like Coulson, and every other male S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, except me, did.<p>

"Director Fury faked your death?" Ward asked, sceptically, a line of doubt crossing his smooth forehead. "To motivate the Avengers?"

"Well, the death of a common ally is a particularly effective team-builder." Hill said, implying her agreement in the plan. So Natasha didn't know Coulson was alive, and she was Level 7? No, doubtful. Even if she was in the Avengers, with a clearance Level of 7, she must've known. Only now, I was Level 8, one step ahead of her. Hardy har.

The four of us stopped in front of the glass doors. Hill was in the dark blue/black field uniform, the S.H.I.E.L.D. insignia on her shoulder.

"_Say cheese_." The monitor said, flashing us. Coulson's ID badge popped up first, then Ward's, Hill's (her ID image with her hair tied back, wearing a grey suit), then mine. I cringed every time I saw the spaghetti strings my red hair resembled on that ID image.

"Plus," Coulson said, "It wasn't that much of a stretch," He reached for the vertical stainless steel door handle to open it for Maria. Ward did the same for me. "I stopped breathing for about forty seconds."

Maria and I walked through, leaving Coulson and Ward at our backs. "Eight." She said, looking back quickly, light brown hair straightened and tucked into her collar whisking, "It gets longer every time you tell it."

"Yeah, well, you get shanked by the Asguardian Mussolini and you can tell it your way. I was looking at the big white light." Coulson grabbed a plastic carded badge, hooking it onto his jacket pocket. Ward and I picked out similar ones, and did the same. I let mine hang at a belt loop, since my jacket was leather and had no breast pockets. Hill didn't need one. "And it felt a lot longer than eight seconds."

The caramel skinned woman behind the desk, talking into her earpiece, didn't look up once as we entered and left that reception area. Other people came and went, in suits and lab coats, minding their own busy bee lives.

"Do they know?" Ward asked, looking up at me from his breast pocket, "The Avengers. That Fury played them?"

"They're not Level 7." Maria said, habitually. Two members on the team were: my sister and _him_.

"Got out of the ICU," Coulson continued, unperturbed, "Fury stuck me in a grass shack in Tahiti. Rough gig." We rounded the bend. "Mai tais, Travis McGee novels, and a physical therapist whose command of English was… irrelevant."

The next set of glass doors led into a control room, computer geniuses behind the best equipment money could buy, high monitors on the wall. The S.H.I.E.L.D. logo printed on everything, the doors, the equipment.

"But something put you back in the game." Ward said, slipping through the glass doors. I ducked behind him. He stretched out his arm, making sure the door didn't hit me on the way in. His fingerprints were left on the door. "What is that?" He asked, walking up to a screen playing a man holding a woman, jumping down from a brick building, hooded but black. The woman wore a white shirt, skirt black with white dots and a red jacket-fleece over. Her legs were as white as sheets, her hair a red/brown colour, with black flats. Hill hid behind a computer. Coulson crossed his arms.

"That's a superhero, agent Ward." Coulson said.

"An unregistered gifted." Maria, in her flat, monotone voice, added. Ward, who had his arms also crossed over his chest, looked down from Coulson. His lips were puckered, subconsciously? Even if he wasn't doing it on purpose, I couldn't bring my eyes to look away. He had to be the one to turn back to the screen, snapping me out of it. "Identity unknown." Hill swiped over a few buttons, and an audio file played. The one she played of that girl from the Rising Tide, when I was "early" to her office.

"_The secret's out…_" Other pages flashed up, of fires, car accidents and other disaster-related media that I didn't quite comprehend. What did they have in common?

"Another little present from the Rising Tide." Coulson said, a touch too bitterly.

"How are they getting this stuff before us?" Ward demanded.

"Some way they cracked out RSA implementation." Maria turned her slim face to look at him for that one. "They're good. So I need better." He nodded, and moved away.

"Agent Coulson has requisited a mobile command unit, to which both of you have been assigned." Hill said, standing before us, barely allowing us time to accept the fact before Coulson gave details to the mission. That was how it was, being an agent. You had to roll with the punches, and adapt to survive.

Picking up a folder, he said, "The Rising Tide is trying to draw us out." Folding his arms over the folder, with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo printed across the cover, he added, "I think it's time they succeeded."

Ward nodded, slightly, and looked to Maria, ignoring my existence. "You want me to cross them off?" I quirked an eyebrow at Hill. He, too, was an ex-assassin? How much of this guy could I actually find out by reading his file? Enough to absorb in one night?

"Wow." Coulson said, mildly surprised with wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and a playfully ignorant look, turning to Maria. "No. I want to use them, to get to him." He cocked his head to the monitor holding the still image of that hooded hero. Ward and I looked at the same time. "This man's world is about to get very weird. He's gonna need some help."

Ward looked away, shaking his head, "I'm sorry," He said simply, "I was trained from day one as a specialist." As in, solo specialist. Got it, he wasn't bendy. Good to now. In bed. "I go in. Alone. I get it done." He divided looks between Coulson, Hill and me, with his hands still jammed in his pockets, only this time it was the pockets of his expensive jacket. "Defusing a nuclear bomb, I'm your guy." Giving Coulson a pointed look, he said, "A welcoming committee?" Once again, playing the macho card, he slid his arms across his expansive chest, making a sucking hissing noise, "Not my speed."

"I don't see why I have to be in this team, either." I said, more to Hill than Coulson, to spare him any misread signals. "If all my missions have had a success rate over eighty percent, and I've only ever been teamed up with a select elite few, raising the percentage to over ninety, why am I going to be paired with Coulson and this solo specialist guy?" Ward gave me an offended look, which I chose to ignore. "Is this a one-shot mission or an extended team effort?"

Hill folded her arms over her chest, the to-go mannerism around here. "Director Fury prides himself in telling people both Romanovas, you and Natasha, are comfortable with anything." She pronounced comfortable the way Fury did, too, as com-for-table. "Don't prove him wrong."

"As for you," Coulson said, to Ward, "I know this isn't what you want. Agent Hill did a detailed assessment of your last three missions." Ward watched, with interest, (and lips still, I'm going with unconsciously, puckered) combat, top grades. Espionage, she gave you the highest marks since Romanoff." Ward looked at me, then Hill, wearing a mildly smug look, refraining a questioning tone in his eyes. "Under people skills, I think it's a…" His eyebrows met, "A little poop." He pointed at the page. "With knives stickin' out of it."

"What?" Ward moved to stare at the page.

Hill opened her mouth to argue, even raised her finger, but it died as "It…"

"That's bad, right?"

Ward recoiled from it, neck straightened, brow still pronounced in a confused facial expression.

"And given your family history," Coulson continued. A distinctive muscle in Ward's jaw ticked. "I'm surprised it's not worse." Ward swallowed, looking up and away with darkly-clouded over eyes. He gave a small shrug. "But," Coulson snapped and snagged the folder shut. "I think you're the guy for this." Ward nodded, minutely. "If I'm wrong, you go straight back to your bombs."

A doctor entered, his white lab coat holding S.H.I.E.L.D.'s insignia on his left breast pocket. "Team's approved," He said, in a deep voice. He had brown skin and white buzzed hair at the top of his head with a matching white beard. "Physicals are all fine." He waved the clipboard in his hand. "Fitz-Simmons is not clear for combat, I'm told that won't be an issue?" Maria flipped the first page, looking under Coulson's page to the rest of ours; mine and Ward's and Fitz-Simmons? "Agent Ward here," He perked up, "He's almost too fit." Too fit? I'd love to see him at the gym. I licked my lips and looked at him.

"That's an issue." Ward stepped forward, "That should be an issue, maybe I can't join the team because—"

"God," Hill said under her breath, "Are you dismissed."

Coulson and I shared a friendly smile.

Hill flipped back the clipboard's papers. "It was a porcupine." She said, strictly by the book, "It was not a poop."

Coulson opened up the folder, looking at the image once more. I craned to see past Coulson's shoulder. "It could be a poop."

"It just means that—"

"No, I'm pretty sure." Coulson interjected, smile playing at his lips, teasingly.

"And it's not just Ward." Hill endured. "Your whole raster is sketchy."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." I said, but I couldn't unhear it. Hill's bright blue eyes never left Coulson's as she said it, which meant that they didn't skim me and I wasn't who she was talking about. Fitz-Simmons? Was that the person she was worried about? Or someone else entirely?

"Well," He propped Ward's folder down on the desk where I was leaning on. My fingers crept toward it. "They're cleared."

"I would have been very happy to not clear you, Phil. I'd like for you to rest up some more." The Doc said.

"I've had plenty of that." Coulson shrugged. "Thanks." The folder was in my hands, it was replacing it that was going to be tricky.

"You sure?" Maria asked, voice softening and demeanour cracking.

"You should go sometime." Coulson said, still smiling.

"Where?"

"Tahiti." Coulson said, slowly, enchanted. "It's a magical place."

Maria breathed a soft laugh. "Three days in and I'd be begging for an assignment."

"Exactly." Coulson spun on his heel to leave. I waited until he pushed open the door to grab the folder.

"Oh, wait, he forgot this!" I ran out the room, following down the visible hall, until neither Hill nor the Doc could see me switch lanes to the left before Coulson turned around. I speed-read the article, scanning it, and flicking through. Pulling out my cell phone, I dialled my sister's private number.

"Hello?" She answered, calmly, casually.

"Hey, Natalie, it's Nate."

"Natasha." She said, "It's Natasha."

"Fine." I sighed, petulantly, "Listen, what can you tell me about agent Grand Douglas Ward, Level 7, specialist in combat and espionage?"


	3. Chapter 3

**So I've never done notes before, in this story or my other Teen Wolf fanfics, because I've never really had anything to say. They've never gotten much success, a few followers here and there but nothing big. This fic seems to be getting more attention-which is great, and I'd just like to say that reviews are much appreciated and that they're more important personally, offering criticism and opinion, than anything else. With Nate in the mix he's gonna take the show in a different direction, much different, and I really need someone... what do they call it, on Archive of our Own they call it Betas I think... to just maybe re-read and approve some of the changes I'm thinking of making. PM me if you're interested.**

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><p>CHAPTER 3<p>

Ward's family history was disturbing. But not surprising. Which is more than a little odd, especially for someone like me. Fury thrives to recruit hopeless people like us, like Grant and Natasha and _him_. Secretly, I think he likes giving people's lives meaning. Just like the multiple wars against multiple enemies he fought gave his life meaning, the start to his heroism complex that drove to him leading Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. Is it Law Enforcement and Logistics Division? I always liked Espionage instead of Enforcement. Anyway…

What I found in his folder was abuse. Of the worst kind. He grew up in Massachusetts, and if that wasn't bad enough, he was tormented, physically and psychologically. With a sister, an older brother and younger brother, the parents most likely had their hands full. At least, that's what you hear as excuses when parents are beating up their kids. The file wasn't specific, but it implied certain methods that I'd rather not go into detail about. His older brother, Maynard, would torture the two younger brothers, but eventually, as time grew on, he would force Grant into hurting his younger brother. Grant had no choice but to do it, out of fear of Maynard. The specificity of the file is not important, but rest assured it is the most reliable source of Intel. His parents and sister are still alive, their locations classified, but you can't say the same for the younger and older brother. It doesn't say if either of them are alive.

Once you know the skeletons of someone's closet, simple things like looking at them in the eye are harder to do. You want to show kindness to this person who was abused, at such a young age, but you want to do it without letting the person know you creeped on their file. An impossible act, if there ever was one.

Instead, I made a point of going with Ward to Coulson's bus, sharing the drive over. All I could hope was that my silent company wouldn't give anything away, not that he would even suspect me reading his file. Even though I'm sure him, and all the other members of Coulson's mobile command unit, have read mine.

In the silent drive over, I noticed Ward's knee bouncing. He was nervous, for whatever reason. Gently, I tried to share his nervousness by patting his knee and biting my lip. Instead, the action just looked superficial, and the driver though I was making a pass at Ward.

Sitting back in the seat, I scrounged up the rest of the view.

Ward's only piece of luggage was a black duffle bag. Mine was a square, brown leather suitcase. We both packed light. Instead of letting me reach for my luggage, Ward surprised me once again, and grabs it so he's hauling both our stuff; one thing in each hand. I both liked and disliked this: I liked it, because even though it surprised me, it showed a nicer side to him and suggested a platonic relationship, which was more than I expected from him. I disliked it because he surprised me, and I am very rarely surprised.

While Ward was selflessly dragging both our luggage, I looked away. I owed him that courtesy. His pants looked like a painted-on second skin, and with each step his tight and firm derriere fluttered the back quarters, or vent. He turned, and jerked his chin to ask if I was coming. Nodding, I looked behind me to insinuate that the view outside had obstructed me, and jogged up to fall in step with him.

The amount of security working here was filled to the brim of camouflage and Kevlar, like a bad cocktail of drinks that didn't blend together. Especially with their toy guns in their hard grips.

I pushed my Ray Bans up my nose, to the top of my head. It stayed there, sweeping my red hair up, not obscuring my view. Parting a smile my way, I took Ward's sleek sunglasses off the bridge of his nose and clipped them onto the lapel of his shirt, scratching and reddening his throat a little. Offering a smile as a thank you, I bowed theatrically at him. A laugh chuckled out of his throat, and I mentally fist-pumped the air.

The bus Coulson promised us was lustrous and wicked, two words you could also use to describe a good katana, because, like a plane, a katana needs to be rustless and sharp enough to cut without trying. The bus ticked both those boxes.

When Coulson warned me who was the pilot, he made it clear to me she wasn't just flying the bus. He trusted me enough not to push her buttons, but not enough to welcome her. I didn't take it personally, as The Cavalry had a nice solo rep. Who was I to try to brandish that with my Red Widow rep?

Two men, in orange striped piloting suits, hopped off the plane's latch. Ward swept his arm outward, gesturing for me to go first. Nodding, I planted a steady foot onto the latch of the plane and walked upward, beside the officious S.H.I.E.L.D. semivan parked to the right.

Between a pile of multi-coloured and multi-fabric luggage, consisting mainly of suitcases, a girl a few months shy of becoming a woman and a boy a few years shy of becoming a man were fussing about.

She had perfectly straight light brown hair that flowered down her pink-sweatered back, with eyes a sharp hazel that were difficult to pin. He had curlish blondish brownish hair with a set of jewelled blue eyes and skin that was creamy white. She was bent over, holding a gun that looked long enough to be a sniper.

"Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, _watch _it!" He hissed in a pitch so low it was about ankle-deep, grappling the lengthy weapon into his arms and cradling it into his chest like an infant. "That's the night-night gun."

"Well, it's on my stuff, and it doesn't work, and there's no way we're calling it the night-night gun!" She spoke in one breath, in an accent that sounded suspiciously English.

"The bullets work!" He insisted, with a tone that made it seem like they had had this argument over again. A square metallic thing was in his hand, which by context and gesturing made me believe it was a clip for the night-night gun. "Nonlethal, heavy stopping power, break up under the subcutaneous tissue."

"But with a dose of only point one microliters of dendrotoxin! I'm not Hermione, I can't create instant paralysis with that." She complained, with an exaggerative eye roll that didn't involve rolling eyes, only a stretching of them and looking up. Dendrotoxin, a neurotoxin produced by mamba snakes. Usually set to kill, mortality rate from a bite nearly 100%. Paralysis? Never heard of it. The girl had a point.

The boy started talking, and the girl started talking until their voices just broke into one sound I couldn't differentiate—

Ward dropped his duffle. Nothing rattled, except the zippers, so what was inside had to be simply clothes and nothing more. As a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent other possessions seem worthless when all you really need, weapons, are already given to you by the organization.

Their chatter stopped, and both looked over. In a depressing voice, Ward asked, "Fitz-Simmons?" He handed me my suitcase instead of dropping it, like he did his own to grab their attention. I took it and propped it up against my leg.

"Fitz." The girls pointed at the boy, with a grin.

"Simmons." The boy pointed at the girl, with a bland expression. "I'm engineering, she's… biochem." He said it with distaste, which made Simmons turn away with her file in her hands.

"Agent Ward?" He asked, then, eyes sparkling and voice alight, "Agent Romanova?" Simmons was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet.

To spare me humiliation, Ward popped out a black block from his pocket. "Coulson said I'd need my com receiver encoded." Fitz greedily snatched the thing out of Ward's hands, then clawed mine away too, when I brought it out.

"Er, mine too, please."

Full-frontal, the boy, Fitz, was actually pretty cute. In a strictly harmless, innocent and ditzy kind of way. Natasha and I weaponized our beauty, and Ward wore it like a snug glove. There was something about the way Fitz held himself, awkwardly with the slope of his shoulders down, innocently and geeky. He had a crisp white shirt with pockets on both breasts and a geometrical tie hanging down his front, with a grey hoodie over it. Childlike wonder in the form of fashion. How interesting.

"Don't know if you've worked with that model before," Ward said, injecting a light firm tone into his voice, eyebrows lightly cresting at the way I was oogling the boy. He placed Ward's receiver down on the table, slender wrist flashing a gold watch, and raised a hammer over his head. In four crashes, it shattered and shrapnel swayed. "It's brand new."

"He'll repurpose the I.D.I.S. chip." Simmons said, hair spilling over a form she was scribbling on.

"Don't need the external receiver for the inner ear comms, anymore." Fitz mumbled, holding up some a fraction of a dust mite in a pair of tweezers. Ward's hand went up to touch, self-consciously, his ear. I smirked.

"You can do that?" I asked Fitz, making my voice startled and awed.

Fitz turned around, eyes cornflower blue. "Of course." He said, then waved between him and Simmons, "I'm engineering. She's biochem." Turning around, he went back to doing his work, oblivious to the interest I was showing. It went down a few notches by the added sum of his voice when first meeting, and now the completely off-switch of interest when a shiny toy was presented in front of him. Yes, smart is the new sexy, but not when they can't tell mild interest from sexual arousal.

"So how does it—" I thought he was going to say "work". Maybe he was. Simmons saddled up to him, forcing apart his lips and prodding a white cotton swab down his throat. He might have gagged a little.

"Embedded sensorineural silicone matched to your DNA." She rubbed the cotton on the side of his cheek, protruding. "It's very posh." With another cotton swab in her hand, Simmons turned to me with delight maddened over her face. I blinked, so slowly it took more than half a second for my eyelashes to block my vision. It gave a peed-off expression, which was what I was going for.

Smacking my gum, I said, "I'll just take my own swab and give it to you, later."

Beaming, she nodded. "So are you excited to be coming onto our journey into mystery?" Simmons asked, more sociably than Fitz. Ward widened his jaw, chewing his lips. He answered for me, although the question was directed toward me.

"It's like Christmas." Not arrogantly, more attitude was involved with the way he said it.

"If you celebrate the winter solstice." I mimicked Natasha, which was what she always used to say whenever Christmas came up. Simmons nodded, enthusiastically, at me, then shambled off into her cave.

Screeching tires alerted me. Ward turned, slowly, while I whipped around to see a bright red hovercapable 1962 Chevrolet Corvette, with the license plate reading: 681 PCE. Whenever I see a car, my eyes go to the license plate to see if it's familiar. This was Lola, one of Coulson's favourite collectables.

"One of Coulson's old S.H.I.E.L.D. collectables," Fitz echoed my thoughts, breath ghosting along Ward's ear, so close I could count the individual goose bumps along his neckline. Coulson opened the door. "Flamethrowers, world's first GPS." He slammed the door, rocking the leather steering wheel. "He's mad for this crap."

A guy in one of those trusty orange suits scampered over to the car. "Don't touch Lola." Coulson instructed. The guy backed away.

Fitz, grinning impishly, said, "And he calls it a girl's name." He smacked Ward, making him shake uncomfortably.

"Did he just spank you?" I whispered, dead serious.

"No, he slapped me on the back." Ward said, cantankerously.

Ward and I followed Coulson, with our bags, up the narrow, winding steel steps. "Lola's not just a collectable, you know." He said, to Ward. I knew what Lola meant to him, I had heard about it on almost every assignment I had been put with Coulson. "People tend to confuse the words new, and improved." He made it up the stairs, walking ahead and into a lounging area. Ward was just behind me.

"This mobile command, they were in heavy rotation back in the nineties, but," I took a quick scan of the room. Interior was made mostly of Cherry Wood, with, of course, a S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the wall. The furniture was white leather, all matching with the design. "Then we got a heli-carrier." Men dressed all in black passed by us, like shadows. "Hey, did you hear the one about the guy who's afraid of flying?" Coulson chuckled. The joke was ridiculously morbid.

"I've done a night jump into a drop zone under heavy fire, sir. I can handle it." Ward responded, routinely.

"That was a joke." Coulson slowed. "The first part of a… I'm not gonna tell it now."

"If you plan to unpack make it quick, wheel's are up in five." A high, sharp voice sang out. Melinda May had a round, hard-wired face with almond-shaped eyes of her Asian heritage, enviably arching eyebrows and a long, glossy curtain of medium length dark hair down her back with eyes to match. She was dressed in S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot uniform, cushiony blue sleeveless vest that cut off at the waist with skintight black material all underneath that went from head-to-toe and was practically stretchy Kevlar. "We may have a hit on one of The Rising Tide's routing points." She handed Coulson a thick file he skimmed.

"Good," He said, "I need to do some catching up." He didn't look up as he said it, only continued reading. May nodded, then clipped back into the cockpit.

Ward was stunned. "Is that… who I think it is?"

"She's just the pilot." Coulson replied, with no more to argue.

"Melinda May is… just the pilot?" He looked back down the corridor, hoping to catch a second glimpse of her. Snapping back to Coulson's reading form, he asked, "C'mon, sir. What game are you really playing?"

Coulson flicked shut the file, "Better stow your gear. Both of you." His clipped tone wasn't harsh. It held an authoritive confidence. He walked into the circular chamber and climbed back up the stairs at a brisk pace.

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><p><strong>Massive warning: The next chapter has heavy smut! Like serious sex, and I've read lots of lemonysmutty/fluffy chapters in preparation and hopefully, my first ever sex scene, won't be a complete bust :p.**


	4. Chapter 4

**I made it shorter than it was originally to specify how long it had been between these two , take note of the things I don't write more than the things I do. For example, in this chapter Nate focuses more on his partner than himself, whereas he should be pleasuring himself (oh God, how to say this without sounding dirty) he doesn't, and it all comes back full-circle to a psych-analysis of Nate that's complicated beyond WORDS.I'll stop rambling now. Enjoy!**

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><p>CHAPTER 4<p>

Half an hour later, Ward and I had claimed our own rooms, and, as far as I knew, had both finished unpacking. It was a menial task that barely took half an hour, but the more I prolonged it the more I hoped to be out in the field quicker. That didn't happen. I had two hours to kill, and nothing to do. Hobbies are scare. How can there be time for hobbies when S.H.I.E.L.D. always supplies you with something? Even on the way to missions, we go through a plan, which Coulson said he will, in a few minutes.

He was still up in the tables near the bar, re-reading what he had just read. Sighing, I patted my thighs and flipped out my phone to stow away in the desk drawer. Rocking onto my heels, I raised myself up with only my legs and wandered outside. The long stretch of corridor was intimidating, the silence eerily clam.

I had changed into a loose Christmas sweater and jeans. Wearing only black socks, I trailed up the stairs, as noiselessly as I dared, with my hand screeching across the windows down the aisle. Coulson's back was to me. He had heard me coming, so there was no use now.

He refused to share anything in front of Ward, and although I was Level 8 now, I didn't want to push my luck with the man whom my promotion rested wholly on.

Before sliding into the seat across from him, I zipped down the two inch zipper of my shirtfront, just to show a triangle of smooth skin. He smiled when he saw me, but rested a palm across the page May had handed him.

"What's with the secrecy?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"No secrecy," He answered, easily, smoothly. "I just don't want to worry you."

"Worry me?"

"So soon, I mean." He amended.

"It's my job to worry about you, Phil."

Coulson cracked a wider smile. "This mission isn't about me. At all, so you're off duty."

"Fine." I looked away, pouting. My ears picked up on the shingle of glasses clinking. "Want a drink?"

"No thanks."

"Wow, you're really focused for this, huh?"

Coulson shut the folder, and pushed it away from his chest. "I just want to be ready. I'm afraid Tahiti's softened me up to the point where Fury might fire me."

"He'd never—"

"That was a joke." Coulson said, slowly, smile growing wider, showing teeth. "Why does everyone on this bus have no sense of humour?"

"Why do you keep calling it a bus?" I flipped the tables, question on him. If he answered a few easy ones, some hard ones might slip.

Coulson didn't answer, seeing through my interrogation as quickly as he had seen Natasha and me being twins. It was there, like a cat's claws or a viper's unretractable fangs. You couldn't turn it off, it was reflex. "Why do you always do that?"

"Do what?" My voice had taken a defensive tone.

"Question everything. Then make things personal when you don't get your way."

I didn't argue. That's what I was doing. "I haven't made anything personal yet." I said, with a challenging smile, letting a crescendo build to the word 'yet', hindering the whole sentence on that single adverb.

"Then what do you call showing unnecessary skin and wearing ass jeans?"

I couldn't keep up my narrowed eyes and hardened expression. We dissolved into giggling like schoolgirls. "You saw through that, huh?" I asked, once the spitting laughter was gone.

"I wouldn't need an X-Ray…"

"Well," I said, lowering my voice, "Maybe I'm trying to seduce you." Huskier, breathier, I added, "Maybe I didn't get enough of you when we stopped seeing each other." Leaning in closer, I brushed my lips across the back of his ear as I said, "Maybe I want one last quickie before I can finally get closure over you."

Coulson's smile was so sultry it hurt to look at it. "Quickie?" His head cocked to the side. "We've got two hours to kill."

"So take your time." I pushed, sliding out of the booth with my hands over his. "I'll meet you in your office?" Even though it was clear he wanted it too, I didn't want to be promiscuous and impulsively suggestive. He had to agree flat-out before I did anything, that was the rule. My self-esteem rule.

"Meet you there in five." He mumbled, sliding out.

Once inside, I didn't have time to assess and analyse Coulson's office. I locked eyes on the desk, and that was it. Desk sex. It would be quite a change from our last time, which was wall sex.

My breathing was ragged, my hands shaking. Yes, I wanted Phil. One question was running rampant through my mind: Does Phil want you? I didn't know for sure, but I was willing to bet he couldn't refuse now, unless we made an emergency landing, which was unlikely.

The minute he walked through the door, I had to take charge. I positioned myself with my socks off at the base of the door.

It unlocked, he walked through it and I grabbed him by the lapels and slammed him against it. He smelled like his warm aftershave and taster sweeter than strawberries. His lips did, once my tongue burst past his lips the cavern inside was all minty. Tongues reuniting like old friends, Phil's hands wrapped up my spine to play on my waist. He applied pressure so I bent my spine and curved inward.

He moaned into my mouth when our groins slotted together.

I knew what I wanted, and we had plenty of time to stretch out the fantasy. Through a cloud of lust, time wasn't the first thing on my mind. I wanted him, and I wanted him now.

Phil growled when my hands went down to slip open his suit jacket. The door behind him shook, clattering against the frame as I forcefully removed the first layering of clothing. He grinned, and I mouthed down the side of his neck to his breast pocket. Licking my lips, I pressed wet kisses to his perked nipple and ran my tongue up and down the pec like a hungry kitten until he unravelled.

He unzipped his fly, then looked up with his eyes clouded over, pupils blown massively. "What about your clothes?" He rasped.

Smirking, I raised my arms up over my head. Phil grabbed the hem of my Christmas sweater and rolled it up my body, tugging it off my head. It lay to the side, crumpled on top of his suit jacket. His hands, smooth and _hard_, mapped out my pale chest, contour by contour.

I tickled my long fingers down his legs, across his powerful thighs and rippled with pleasure. Those powerful thighs weren't just for show, I remembered.

Grabbing his soft, squeezable ass, Phil let out a scream of pleasure that rang all the way down to my little toes. I leaned close to bridge the gap between our bodies. He bit at my earlobe.

"You wanna fuck me, Phil?" I taunted, friction gaining between us. He nodded, whimpering. "Wanna fuck my tight ass, hm? Hard, pounding, relentless. On your desk, scattering away all that shit, just fucking tackling me!"

Inhumane noises ripped from his chest and he flung me around. Arms out, that slapped against the hard wood of his desk. I smiled. His hands roamed the mounds of my backside, massaging, kneading. Through the material, he pressed his tongue against the seam down the middle of my cheeks, pressing so I could feel the warmth through the jeans.

"Ohmy—Phil, now!"

He moved away, and the soft whispers of his shirt against his skin sounded as he shucked it off violently, exposing that deliciously cut skin, sprinkled with sexy hairs all along his chest. A scar, burgundy and raised, split down between his nipples. Loki's sceptre. I dropped to kiss it, licking up as he toed off his shoes, but left his socks on, and unceremoniously dropped his pants. A wet spot was gathered at the tip of his grey boxer briefs.

I dropped to my knees, grabbing two handfuls of his ass, rough and intense, hooking the waistband of his boxers with my teeth. Never breaking eye contact, I sluggishly lowered his waistband until his cock sprung free from the confinements. It was beautiful and hard, with veins criss-crossing all along the surface of his long length. The foreskin was peeled all the way back, spitting precome.

Dabbing my tongue to the tip of his cockhead, Phil squeezed his eyes shut, fingers sliding in my hair to cut through my scalp. I dragged myself up, the sensitive tip pressed against my skin. As I got up, it slid down my body from my lips to my chin to my chest and eventually, my tented jeans.

Phil's smile was so malicious, I thought he was going to revoke my right to come when he reached around to pop the snap of my jeans. I joined our bodies, his warmth igniting the memories of all the times we shared a bed, a wall, Lola, with our lovemaking.

Phil was equally teasing, making sure my jeans dropped to his leisure. When they pooled at my ankles, that was good enough. I was going commando, and Phil loved it. Phil whipped me back around, shredding off his boxers. Feet tangled, he growled and dove down to unhook my ankles off my jeans, one leg at a time.

Bending me over his desk, he whispered in my ear, "Ready?"

My voice was broken into fragments so tiny I needed a microscope to find them. I just nodded, and that was all she wrote.

Phil's cock penetrated me in one thrust. Instantaneously, lights blew up behind my eyelids. Phil squatted, his cock curving to quell my prostate and explode _those_ sensations all along my body, in peaking waves of pleasure.

Being loud wasn't an issue, Phil's walls were soundproof.

I was as vocal as I wanted to be, as Phil pulled all the way back, until only the head was still inside me, and canted his hips to rip through my puckered hole, the stretch and burn delicious. My mouth watered. "Now, Coulson, remember, if I don't come, you don't come." I warned.

His chest was to my back as he leaned in, smiling, and began peppering my cheek with kisses. Each shuffle he made dragged the ragged scar tissue across my smooth back. "We'll both come… explosively." He promised, teetering his fingernails down my stomach to my neglected cock. My ass was outward so my cock wouldn't be hurt by the desk's edge. He squeezed, softly, then drove the skin upwards, and all the way back down to the root of my cock, slicking his thumb across the slit to make me jerk in his hand.

Phil's thrusts weren't hard enough. He knew how to pull hair, and did, as the hand that was playing with my cock ended up on my hip, his other yanked the back of my head and I screamed when he drove his cock home, again, hitting my prostate dead-on, too many times.

"Sweetheart, I want to come." Phil moaned. "Make me come."

I clenched. Phil mewled.

His hands were constantly in motion. He brushed down my sides, pulling apart my cheeks so his powerful thighs dragged out the orgasm we were chasing.

"Phil." I warned. "Phil!"

He moved his hips back, ass bouncing, and increased the speed of his thrusts. The sound of skin slapping skin was delectable, Phil was making "uh-uh-uhs" that were thickening my cock even further, if that was even possible with the state it was at. Copious amounts of my precome had leaked onto the top of Phil's desk.

"Are you close?" He breathed, so close to the nape of my neck he rolled my ear between his teeth, then striped up his tongue to catch a bead of swat that was dripping from my hairline. "Hmm, salty."

"Oh! Phil! Fuck, I'm…" A smile curved my lips. "Oh _yeah_." My orgasm was explosive. The building pleasure that had united for what felt like forever in my balls erupted in a pool of heat at my stomach, and splashed forward to drench the contents of his desk (what had survived the train wreck we had caused) in my semen. My orgasm was drawn out, eliciting the softest of moans from me, as my cock continued to jerk and twitch.

Phil grabbed my wrists, and tugged backwards on my arms. "Fuck." He groaned. "Oh, your ass! I'm so close, baby, so close. Make it good, make it tight for me, sweetheart." With all the remaining strength I had, smiling all throughout, I clenched so hard my legs jerked uncomfortably, the hairs matting to Phil's body. "Mm." He hummed.

His cock spasmed, splattering. He let go of my wrists, and tucked out his cock to lash out his come in ribbons across my ass. "So pretty, painted in my come." He crooned. "Oh, baby." I felt the hot sashes lance across my back, and the cooling sweat dance against the heat. "I'm gonna clean up the mess, now, okay, baby?"

The bliss had overtaken me. I didn't register his words. Precipitously, Phil's tongue was broadly swiping over my ass, licking up his come, and teasingly peeking inside to lap up the mess. He rolled me over, and crushed his chest to mine, hairs tickling across my marble smooth expanse. Head bent over my shoulder, a hot slurping went South to my groin, which jumped to attention between Phil's thighs.

"I'm not done eating your come, baby, you want me to take care of you again?" He asked, hand coming up with white drooling down his fingers. I sucked his swirling digits into my mouth, curling my tongue over his fingers. He smiled, warmly, and I put a little pressure on the back of his head. "Okay." He laughed, and stretched swollen, quivering lips over my cock, popping and sucking and licking until the euphoria devoured me and all the evidence of "us" were gone.

"You okay?" I asked, "Need me to…?" I raised one leg and he hooked it around his waist, sweat sticking our skin. He delve in, for a bittersweet kiss with the residue of come still on our battling tongues. His naked, sweaty, hairy body writhed against mine, and I made the most pathetic sound in his mouth.

"You've done enough, Nate." Phil yearned, with a grin playing at his lips. Our sticky bodies were still mashed together, so I dropped my leg and gently pressed on his chest, palming his no-longer-erect nipples. Nate. Four people were allowed to call me that: my sister, he who shall not be named, and my two superiors: Director Fury and Commander Maria Hill. He was too comfortable.

"You get that this was a hook-up right?" I asked, tenaciously, hating myself for sounding so vulnerable, so meek. "We're not… together."

Phil's smile stoked into one of professionalism, "Of course, don't worry. I know that." He turned around and bent over to pick up our clothes in a bundle in his arms. The sight was too much for me, so I turned, gripping the desk with both hands. A sigh behind me, and Phil placed our clothes on his desk. "Is this gonna be too hard for you?" He asked, gently, padding my shoulder. I bit my lip. "I'll admit, I didn't just want a one-time thing, I thought of a whole friends with benefits scenario, for us, but… Nathaniel, please, are you okay?" He turned me around. "Say something."

I shoved my face into my hands, shaking my head. "Urgh! Phil, you just put our clothes on my wet spot!"

"Oh." Phil said, calmly. "I cleaned up your wet spot." He said, with a broad winsome grin. "I can do it again?"

A smirk possessed my face, and I allowed him to grab both my thighs, throwing them over his exquisite ass. His lips attached to my neck. "We have half an hour left."

I looked behind me. "I think you missed a spot."

* * *

><p><strong>It was hard writing this chapter (no pun intended) because I didn't know where to take it from here. Coulson and Nate have a history, he is not the "he" Nate keeps referring to, but I don't want them to have an onlasting relationship that spans out. Coulson's hot, Nate appreciates that, and that's about it. That was approach A, which made Nate seem petty and heartless, so I went to approach B, a no-strings-attached deal which consumed half of the story and was basically just no good. The solution: Approach C. "He" comes into play sooner than expected, severing the ties Nate had to Coulson because he realizes no matter how much he likes Coulson (not loves, likes), he's not ready to be serious with anyone, and a messy thing like a friends with benefits deal will just end up hurting Coulson because of Nate's enhanced physical attributes and will hurt Nate because of how he's built to <em>feel.<em>**  
><strong>Anyway, hope you enjoyed. Sorry about the constant explanations, Nate's a complicated character and one word could make you end up hating him. I feel it's neccessary for those of you who want to understand him to just brush up on Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow's, history. Thanks for reading!<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**Thank everyone for all the support!**

**In this chapter, Nate _tries_ to talk to May and teases Fitz.**

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><p>CHAPTER 5<p>

No matter how many times I asked Phil, I mean agent Coulson, he wouldn't let me stay on the bus. He and Ward were headed to the main establishment, (and by main establishment, what is meant is the one location The Rising Tide's feed is coming from) to pick up whoever they found in that superficially parked van.

Agents Fitz, Simmons, May and I were all headed to East Los Angeles where the hooded hero saved the woman from that burning building. Biggest cliché yet, but as it turns out, The Rising Tide was also in LA. Definite connection there.

May drove the S.H.I.E.L.D. imprinted car there, with me in the passenger seat and Fitz-Simmons in the back. I had no delusions about agent Melinda May. She had more black belts than Natasha, one of the few agents who could pride themselves in that. Her personal life was heavily choked by red tape. There was a marriage in her past, yet the outcome of that marriage, the ending or what brought about its end, is unknown. In addition, after an incident in Manama, Bahrain she retired from field work and went to work in Administration. Phil—Coulson—must've pulled some pretty tight strings for her to be back, just for him. I remembered what Maria said about his roaster, and paused to glance over at her.

The Cavalry. She earned the starchy nick-name because of that mission with Coulson, which left her unhinged. That was a carefully printed word in her file.

Smiling warmly, I said, "My sister often talks about you."

May's eyebrows popped up, nevertheless she remained silent. Fitz and Simmons stopped their bickering to listen. "She always joked about the many black belts she'd have to gain in order to surpass you." Flattery seemed to be the best approach to get her to open up, or at least smile. May's face was stone cold, as emotionless as can be.

Smirking, I looked out the window. "Still," I press heavily on the word, "I don't think you're the only one who can beat my twin sister." Tipping my sunglasses lower down by nose just to peek up at her, I said, "One-on-one. No weapons." It's an open-ended invitation, and May just smiled the smallest, softest smile I could ever imagine on a person.

"I don't suppose that goes for all of us." Simmons tried, faltering her smile when May's eviscerates her face.

"I was told, agent Simmons, that you and little Leo weren't fit for field work." My ankles are crossed, legs splayed out on the dashboard. May glared, but said nothing. The position made it harder to sneak a glance over at Fitz.

He fumed. "Why does she get to be called 'agent Simmons', and I'm 'little Leo'?"

"They say someone's name holds a lot of power over them." I employed a faraway voice that was melodic, in pitch. "And I, little Leo, want all the power I can get around you." Fingernails scratch up the leg of his trouser, daring to brush up against the skin of his ankle.

Fitz opened his mouth and closed it, repeatedly, body visibly tensed under my touch. Simmons watched with mock horror, as I made a move on her boy. "Don't get jealous, sweetheart," I sang sweetly, shifting to slide my other hand up her thigh. "There's plenty of me to go around."

"And here I thought you only went after the big leagues." May teased, eyes trained on the road. That shut me up, and I swung around to face her. She parked the car, throwing my forehead inches from crashing on the board, legs flailing to the floor. "We're here." She suppressed a smile opening the door.

Being the last one out, I watched Simmons jump and grab Fitz's shoulders, as they excitedly took in their new surroundings. May, in a fine prissy suit jacket with black jeans, moseyed straight over to the side of the road that was crumbled, a small wave of cracked rock rippled around the caved in sight. I followed.

"Which building do you think he leaped out of?"

May was already staring at it. Raising a slender wrist, she pointed and Fitz-Simmons followed sight. The pair followed us as we flashed out S.H.I.E.L.D. badges at the men standing guard outside and headed inside, up to the billionth floor where the explosion originated.

"This was a lab." Simmons whined. "Was this leased as a lab?"

"Self-empowerment centre." May corrected, running a flashlight up and down the greyed walls. We all had black gloves on, in case anything that could be tactile hazardous was around. "With a top-of-the-line motion sensor security system." She added.

Most of the remnants were scattered, caking in the grey afterglow of some kind of fire. Numbered yellow blocks were placed, as clues. Most evidence would have been bagged by now. Simmons dropped to her knees in front of a charred, yet still twistedly pink, body.

"Ah," Simmons fawned, "So a secret lab."

"And a superhero." I noted. "Not a coincidence."

May nodded, agreeing. "So was this explosion sabotage? Was it meant for him? Or were they just in over their heads?"

Simmons had a small pair of incisor clips between her fingers, about to take a sample of the dead person's chest. Holding a vial or some kind of flask in her other hand, she punctured the juncture between the collarbones and begun spinning around in there for anything to plop into her beaker to examine.

"Yeah, working the problem." Fitz muttered, trudging on tiptoes behind, "Excuse me, sorry." He said, passing us to plant a silver brief case large enough to be a suit case on the ashy floor. Nimble fingers popping the top, he lifted the lid like it was a treasure chest. I was waiting for the golden glow to bask on his pale, bluntly boyish features, when May said:

"If you're going to be in the field, agent Fitz, you have to get your hands dirty."

"No," Fitz answered, bleeping and blooping with a slim black controller device that looked like an assortment of three tables in his hands. "I don't." A dozen small buzzing metallic drones lifted into the air.

"His D.W.A.R.F. drones, quad-copters created by him, each one named after one of the seven dwarves from Snow White." Simmons whispered in my ear.

"Hiho, off to work you go." Fitz mumbled, under his breath, scattering the drones into every dark and damp corner of the room.

"So he's got a hard-on for fair virgins with red lips and dark hair?" I pouted. "Damn."

May wondered over, forcing Simmons to bite her lip to not laugh out loud. "See," She began, "We designed each with their own capabilities. So, um, some recording the dimensions and textures of the room, and then some testing the matter density, radiation." She listed. "I mean, one is basically just smelling." Simmons laughed, ponytail swinging as she showed the tablet she held like either one of us knew what she was talking about.

"Clever." May mused.

"Woah, woah, woah. I've got something in something." Fitz declared, staring down so hard at his assortment of screens I was tempted to peek over his shoulder.

"Who's got it?"

"Bashful." Fitz pointed. A device flew by May, a blue laser screening past her. May clipped up into the pile of rubble.

"Aww." Simmons said. I gave her an estranged look. "Bashful." She mumbled, which she did look a bit.

May fished out a block from the metallic bowl centred just behind a fallen beam she crouched to get. "Surveillance camera." She said, flashing her light at it. "Deep fried." There was a note of disappointment leaked behind her words. Bad tinker tailor soldier spy.

"Yes but that model has flash memory—" A chang vibrated above him, causing Fitz to snap his head up but never stop talking. "In case of brownouts." He begun talking with a grin, but now he had composed himself and was treading around shallow waters again, as if for a moment a sliver of the tech-happy Leo Fitz was shown before the danger-safe prude resurfaced. I wanted to see him grin like that again. He looked so young, so vulnerable. How wasn't he excited like Simmons? More importantly, what was so wrong that he couldn't be excited like his bio-chem partner?

"I could sync that with data from the motion detectors. And, with a little luck, get some images from before the blast." He was smiling again, harmlessly cute. May was staring at him, an unreadable expression on her judging face. "And by luck I mean unappreciated genius." He susurrated bitterly.

"Yeah, we'll need it." Simmons said. I perked over at her screen, seeing distorted jumbles of shapes. She stepped out of a puddle of black charcoal blocking around her sneakers. "Snow's reading some compounds that are…" May handed Fitz the fried camera. Simmons stopped walking. "Woah, my God." She hushed, crouching down with the crinkles of glass rolling around her.

Fitz never looked up from his three screens. "Explosive?" I asked, snagging May's attention. With a pair of pincers, Simmons raised a half-bent scrap of metal with an ember colour in the poignant of it, bubbled with the black burnt material.

"Not of this earth."

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><p><strong>Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Obvioously, more to come. There's no hiatus, I've just been busy. Hopefully, I'll get to write more on the weekend. These chapters are always so short, but school is so draining I just can't keep up!<strong>


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

May drove the car back to the bus. We settled in, Fitz-Simmons took their equipment to analyse in the lab and May invited me to join her for some type of rank-smelling (and tasting) herbal tea. I sat in silence and drank with her, waiting for her to speak. She never did. I assumed it meant I was on her good side. I prayed, more than hoped. May seemed like she would hold a grudge.

Half an hour later, Coulson called us all to a panel room.

Each member of the team, save for Ward, was around the table. Skye, the woman Coulson and Ward found in the truck, swiped a driver's license onto the table. She was a round-faced young girl, very young, with too-bright-to-be-real blonde highlights in her chocolaty brown hair. Her eyes were an umber type of sappy bark wood. The skin stretched over her fine cheekbones were dotted with rosy pink, as were her lips. Perfectly coated in a high-shine lipgloss.

A yellow scan module began, of Michael Peterson, the hooded hero, under Skye's petite hand. So much potential under that one technological finger. Damn.

"Michael Peterson." Coulson said, stoically. "Factory worker. Married, one kid." An array of linked articles spread throughout the table, zipping and zooming into full view. Basically, it was a detailed assessment of his life in officious-looking forms. "Gets injured. Gets laid-off." Personally, I preferred Coulson's debriefing. He walked to stand at the head of the table, May and I to his left and Fitz-Simmons to his right. Skye was hovering in the background, uncertain of where she stood. I'd have to ask her that, later. "Wife jumps ship. Good guy, bad breaks."

Hitting her top lip with her polished fingernail, Skye wondered, albeit hesitantly with bambi steps, over to my side where the most room on the table was left. She peeked up at me through her long, curved eyelashes. I smiled, charmingly. A flash of sparked emotion flickered through her, tugging her lips, before we were both sucked back into the assignment. She wasn't someone I could mess with. Not now, with her so loosely cannoned to the team.

"Best guess is, someone tells him they can make him stronger. Make him super." Coulson said, throwing an educated light out into the otherwise alphabetic situation.

"Who has the tech to do that?" May inquired, pointedly looking toward Fitz-Simmons, hoping for connections, and moving on to sweep her analytical eyes to the rest of us. Landing on Skye last. "And why would they want to?"

"Fitz, what do we have from the security footage?" Coulson asked. "Before the blast."

Fitz comically beep-booped until a pixilated, digitalized captured photo lumbered onto the screen. We all turned to face it. The scene was a lab. One man in a white lab coat was being shouted at by the other gesturing man, holding something in his hand and pointing. Fear was a factor. The scientist seemed to be stepping back.

"What are we seeing?" I prompted.

"Well the man is angry. At the other man." Fitz said, slowly, drearily, looking for confirmation from around the circle. He was met with blank faces. Simmons stepped up for her… partner?

"The data is very corrupt." She excused, apologetically.

"Yeah, like Cold War Russia corrupt." Fitz remarked.

"Yeah." Simmons breathed.

I glared with narrow eyes at the pair of them.

"I-I can't sync the time code without—" Fitz blubbered.

"What if you have the audio?" Skye apted. "I was… running surveillance on the lab in my shot and I pointed it at the window before the blast. The digital file's in my van. There's too much background noise for me, but you could probably…" Beauty and brains. And a great fashion sense. Sky was wearing this purple and black number with skinny jeans and to-kill-for boots.

"You can clean that up." Simmons piped up. "Can't you? Find a sync point and use cross-field validation to find—"

"But I can't scrub for expression patterns when the vit-c is all—" Fitz mumbled, rather pessimistically.

"Well, is there a chrominance subcarrier?"

"Yeah, attached to the back porch. Brilliant." Fitz said, twisting bright smiles away from each other. I felt like I had watched a cat-and-mouse chase. They finished each other's sentences, and were comfortable enough with each other that there was no problem with touching or arguing. There had to be have been at least a five to six year period prior to the bus where they knew each other. Maybe in The Academy.

"Um, that audio would be great." Fitz said, at the same time Simmons said:

"We will take that audio, please." With a nod and a smile. Courtesy of good manners?

"Thank you very, very much." Fitz added, sheepishly.

Skye blinked and stared, face stunned but bemused. She didn't have time to answer.

"Your van's here, but you were right. We couldn't decrypt the files." Coulson said, with what sounded like an approving tone to his voice. She must've really impressed him. Double damn. Girl was on a DD scale in my book. Maybe I should class her as a C. At this rate, she would make A-grade pretty fast.

"The encryption's coupled to the GPS." Skye gloated. "Get my van back to that alley, and then I'm in business." Her arms were crossed, she did a little bounce with her shoulders that was perkily eager. To help S.H.I.E.L.D. despite her belief system. She was sacrificing her principals for the greater good.

Fuck, she was a C+.

"Agent May will escort you." Coulson ordered, on their way out. Skye's heels clipped out. Coulson caught May before she left. Turning for extra information, she waited for him to say, "And on your way out, wake up Ward." before nodding and heading out with Skye.

The awkwardness in the room was dense enough to choke on. Fitz-Simmons followed suit quickly enough, leaving Coulson and I alone. "Are you thinking of asking the girl to join?"

Coulson nodded, jaw clenched, staring at the screen with the image plastered on.

"Even though it goes against her Rising Tide philosophy?"

Again, he nodded. "She's valuable. Her skill set is… improbably unrealistic. And we know nothing about her. At all. You of all people should realize how rare that is."

"Why me of all people?" I cozied against the table, leaning so my hip was holding my weight, while my arms crossed over my chest doing wonderful things to my biceps, taut against the white shirt sleeves.

Coulson's brows furrowed. "Because you've worked here for so long?"

"Right." Pushing up off the table, I stepped into his personal bubble, eyes going up to the ceiling. "I thought it was the other thing."

"I thought we didn't mention the other thing."

"Natasha's pretty open about it."

He guffawed. "We both know that's a lie."

My hands fell to my sides. "Look, I just don't want you thinking I joined your team out of guilt."

"And I get that." He put pressure onto his next words. "You had an assignment during The Battle of New York. I was under orders, too. Nothing personal." Coulson tried to slip free, bee-lining for the door. I did the only thing I could think of to stop him. Stretching my hand out, my palm slapped against his chest, against his scar, and I saw him wince against the jolt of phantom pain it sent to his heart.

"I would have killed him."

Coulson's hands closed around mine, squeezing airtight. "I believe you. But I don't blame you for Loki stabbing me through the heart." He made the mere idea sound ridiculous, impossible even.

"But if I hadn't had been so busy with his brother, and Steve and—" He spared me from having to say _his _name.

"It doesn't matter. I'm fine."

"No thanks to me."

Coulson rolled his eyes. Actually rolled his eyes. "I don't care that your mission that night was to seduce the other guy's secrets!" He exploded. "I'm not jealous!"

A smile quirked my lips. Skirting my hands down his back, chest against his chest, I breathed into his ear with the tip of my tongue wetly teasing the shell of his ear. "Who said anything about jealousy?" Grabbing his ass, two intense fistfuls, I pushed away from him, laughing internally at his expression.

Yeah, I felt bad about not being able to stop his death. But I wasn't about to let him think that. I had enough nightmares as it was.


	7. Chapter 7

**This chapter is actually really boring. It tells you nothing about Nate, and is basically just him witnessing the team figure stuff out together-but it's a necessity for the next chapter that builds up how lonely Nate feels. Angst is coming, so prepare yourselves. It was a real challenge slotting Nate into the story, so I'm going to make him a bit of an outsider that the others warm up to because he's so infamous. Mostly though, the people he'll be in most contact with will be Phil, Skye and a lil bit of Ward. I'll make sure to add more interactions between Leo and him, cause they're so cute, but it's going to take some thawing to make Nate get out of his comfort zone. This is a back-to-back chapter with 8.**

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><p>CHAPTER 7<p>

"Okay, I'm gettin' it. When you get back I'll show you my thing." Fitz said, cringing. "Oh, no, not my thing. My hard-drive." A panic attack was right under his skin, pumping. "It's my equipment! Uh, hang up." He threw the earpiece to the desk and wondered back away. Huh. Coulda sworn that I was first in line to see his thing.

"So the alien metal wasn't the explosive?" Coulson asked, arms crossed, standing over Simmons. She had a white lab coat on, goggles in place, and was polishing her new toy.

"Well I assumed, from the great pattern of dispersion, it was but… it's just dripping gamma radiation that—Uh!" An orangey yellow ooze flowered out of the underside of the metal held by cleavers. "Now it's actually dripping." She got a glass under it, two drips after. "Fun!" She exclaimed, fervently, looking up to Coulson before flashing back down.

"So what did that get us?" Ward trudged into the lab, all tower muscle and intimidating nature hidden under a grey shirt and a rocky expression.

"Skye's sending us the rest," He put a finger to Ward's abs, pausing him for Fitz to grab a machine on the table in front of him, "of her decrypted files on Centipede, but we have her audio. I've loaded it up." So that's what he held in his hands.

"Nice work." Coulson teased, in a chummy playful mood, apparently.

Literally biting his lip, Ward turned to give Coulson a look of seething hatred. Coulson didn't lose face. He just turned to listen to Fitz's amble babbling. "By using motion estimation, Bayesian inference, a beam splitter, and a little diffraction theory," He stood at the base of the stairs, one or two up, fiddling with the machine in his hands until red lights salved from four rods he projected. The picture buzzed to life. "Our mystery man appears. It's like magic." Ward walked forward. "But it—it's science."

"Explosives in the case?" Ward inquired.

A man in a grey shirt slammed down a brief case. The other man, in a white lab coat, said, "Please clam down. Let me check your vitals!" He pleaded.

"No, I feel fine." The man's eyes were too wide, his posture too shaky. Like an addict during withdrawal. "I want to feel more. Where's the doctor? Where is she?" He raised his voice, getting Simmons to turn her head over at the image.

"If you don't settle down I-I-I'll have you sedated." The man threatened, emptily, voice shaking.

He lifted a chair, breaking it on a table so the image split the chair into scattered blocks. A silver flash came when his arm went down. "D-Did you see that? On his arm?" Fitz rewinded the image, particles and building blocks coming back together at a point where the man held the chair over his head. His shirtsleeve was pulled back, a wiry metal graved into his arm, elbow to wrist.

"What does that look like to you?" Coulson asked.

"A centipede." Ward and I said, at the same time.

"It's an intravenous filter for his blood." Simmons said, flustered, with a curl of hair falling onto her face. Intravenous meaning directly into the vein. "This goo, sir, very similar to the serum Dr. Erskine developed in the forties for the—"

"Super soldiers." Coulson finished, not baring to look me in the eye. I rolled mine.

"I'm reading alien metal, gamma radiation, the serum. Every known source of superpower thrown in a blender."

"We need to see the origin of the blast." I supplied.

Nodding, Coulson commanded, "Run it back from the last point recorded."

Slowly, testing my patience, the blazing fury of fire melded together as Coulson walked towards the source of the blast: the man himself. An electrical bloodworm ran under the skin along his temple, glowing. "Extremis. It's new. Completely unstable." Coulson said.

"Poor man didn't bring an explosive." Fitz locked eyes with her. "And Mike has the same stuff in his system."

"Judging by his strength level, a lot more." Ward put in. I didn't know how anyone could possibly assess a strength level and compare it to a man's who had an unknown capacity of strength, but I let it slide. As a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent you shouldn't question another agent, if they know something you don't, respect it, swallow it, move on.

"So any minute know Mike is gonna…" Fitz made widening gestures with his hands.

"He'll take out anyone within a two block radius." Simmons said, in one ragger breath.

"Well," Coulson slyly muttered, on his way out, "You wanted a bomb." Ward looked away, pinning his eyes to mine.


	8. Chapter 8

**This sheds teasing light into Nate's past, so don't skip this chapter it's very important and is a build-up to a porny scene for the next one. I can't believe how much sex I'm writing. It's all very... sudden, you know? I don't even see it coming, Nate's just a sort of no-nonsense person, no one decides if they like him or not, they just _do_. And then he sort of exploits that. My main worry with him is that he may come off as a bit of a cockslut, but I'm basing him on Natasha, with a chemical hardwire of being a dominant "male". It'll be explained later, but don't judge him. Yet.**

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><p>CHAPTER 8<p>

Ward was quietly constructing his sniper, inspecting every square inch of the murder machine. Coulson was behind him, his back to me. I was just there, watching them both, like a fly on the wall. There wasn't just a sense of unease in me. That was natural, so I didn't dwell on that too long. Once the assignment was complete, the butterflies would leave. It was the loneliness that came with being on this team that surprised me. I had Coulson, Ward, Fitz-Simmons all here on the bus with me, yet I couldn't have felt more alone.

And I had no idea why.

"He didn't explode because he was angry." Simmons announced, walking with Fitz on her heels, hurriedly explaining the intense chemistry behind the explosion of the serum. Coulson stepped out to talk to her, to talk to them both.

I remained with Ward, arms crossed. "You excited?" I wet my lips. His eyes glided over me, lathering the length of my body that made me feel so naked I hugged my arms closer to my chest. "Not like that." I muttered, not expecting the vulnerability etched into my voice.

"Not especially." Came his even reply. "It's nothing new."

"Crossing people off?"

Ward didn't even look up. "Yes." Was all he said. "You?"

A stroke of inspiration lucked through me. If I was going to be honest with this team, I had to give them the truth. Not stories they may have heard from the Academy or from other agents. Here was my chance.

"Sure, I've crossed a few people off."

"You mean on assignments?" Ward stopped, stroking his hand down the table's edge to sling loosely by his side. He stared, eyes sharp and mouth thin. "Right?"

My jaw twitched, jittering my lips. "Not just… on assignments." A sigh supervened. "Not many people know this. Natasha would kill me if she knew I was talking about it. But it was before either of us got into S.H.I.E.L.D. We were… weren't exactly spies. Not in the conventional sense."

Coulson looked back, as if sensing my words. I stared back, until Coulson began walking back into the room. Ward resumed taking care of his sniper. "Don't ever tell me," Coulson snapped, turning back to Fitz-Simmons, "there's no way. It's on you. Get it done."

Ward clipped the sniper together, shortening its length to fit into his bag.

"That was a little harsh." I said. "Putting pressure on them to test their limits?" Coulson ignored me, getting out his phone. "Coulson!" I demanded his attention, snapping my fingers in his face.

"Wait." He said, pointing the phone to the screen. "May."

"He took Skye." She said.

"You alright?"

"We'll deal with that later." May said, sounding pained. "At length." She growled. "Right now we need to figure out where they went."

"Mike wants a clean slate." I said. "He needs a way of transportation."

"Can we scan for Skye's van's plates?"

"No need." Coulson said. "May, I'll send you the coordinates."

"Roger that." She said, clipped tone gone and simple obedience remaining in her condition.

Ward shrugged on a black jacket, sliding down the stairs. Coulson took the other way down. I followed Ward, feeling dejected and misplaced. Clearly, there must've been some mistake putting me on this team. My skillset wasn't needed, and even if I was a hard-wired spy, I was human. I had insecurities. I needed orders!

"It's longitude and latitude." Coulson told Fitz-Simmons. "Mike took Skye. She's telling us where." The bus opened, streaming in a soft glowing light.

I slid into the back seat of the car. Ward entered the driver's seat seat, leaving Phil to passenger. Perfect symbolism.

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><p><strong>Next chapter will have a sex scene in the car.<strong>

**Take a moment to absorb that.**

**Also, thanks to everyone who's supported this, from people who've reviewed to those who've favourited to those who are following! It all means so much to me.**

**In other news, (shuffles papers and clears throat) with the latest season of Arrow, I was toying around with the idea of making a genderswap Catwoman in there. It's a little bit of a stretch but they're both DC characters and it just fits with the Batman/Catwoman dynamic that they have (could have). I'll take suggestions for that developing story, but it's going to be SUPER hard to do 3 stories. My Teen Wolf one isn't as well known because of how long each chapter is, but I'm really like the idea of having a cat-and-mouse gay character in Arrow. It'll be fun to play around with that. Yes I'm gay, but not narrow-minded. I can write straight characters, just FYI.**

**I'll take suggestions if anyone wants to add to the Arrow story.**

**Cheers!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Okay, so in this chapter Nate's not sure what's his place on the team so he reverts to what he does best-sex. Well, kinda. In the car, he gives Coulson head and then, err, does something interesting with his come.**

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><p>CHAPTER 9<p>

It was a five minute drive. Which meant it should have been shorter than it felt. It wasn't.

"Coulson, why are you mad at me?" I requested, ignoring Ward's surreptitious glances. "What, exactly, have I done?"

Coulson sighed. "Nothing." He mumbled, under his breath. "Nothing at all. You're absolutely perfect, no qualms or annoying characteristics."

"If I bother you that much, why did you request me on your team?"

"Because I know how good you are in the field!" Coulson yelled.

"Then give me an assignment." I countered, feeling a voyeuristic take on Ward's glaring. "Instead of having me play follow the leader, give me something to do. You trust May enough to let her be Skye's guard, and yet I have no place on this team."

"Of course you do."

"What is it?"

"As valid as May's, or Ward's."

I yanked the back of Coulson's collar, twisting him in his seat. Hand going between his legs, I pinched. "Give me something to do so that I don't go insane waiting." A guttural sound thrummed in my throat. Ward was keeping his eyes trained on the road. Coulson leaned in, pecking at the side of my mouth. His hand circled the back of my neck, thumb stroking up my hairline.

I laughed in his face. "So that's my role? I'm your stress-relief?"

Ward's voice had the same serious edge, with a husky round to it. "Stress-relief is important, agent. You should know that. Especially on missions this stressful."

I gave him a look with narrowed eyes, shaking my head. "He's right Romanova," Coulson chipped in, spreading his thighs. "This much stress isn't healthy."

A more realistic, genuine laugh escaped my throat. "So I'm not just your stress-relief?" I moaned, clipping my seatbelt off. "I'm also… fill in the blank." I whispered, gliding Coulson's belt off, loop by tantalizing loop.

"The espionage specialist." Ward prompted, with a sly smirk. I whipped the belt to the floor.

"A skilled fighter." Coulson added, licking his lips as I unbuttoned his pants. "And someone I can trust." He tipped my chin up. "I'm serious."

Smirking, I said, "Ward? How long do we have?"

Ward's eyes darted to the clock. "Ten minutes."

"Good." I purred. "Try to keep your eyes on the road." I said, slotting myself between the console and their separate seats. Tugging Coulson's pants so that the vee of his hips showed, I gave a long teasing lick down his stomach, tongue circling his bellybutton. Coulson sighed. Hooking my fingers into his underwear, I moved so slow that when his cock sprang free and hit the cool A/C air, Coulson actually sighed.

Skinning back the foreskin, I pressed the flat of my tongue against the head of his cock, feeling it twitch and jump as my lips peeled lower. Bucking up, Coulson's cock rammed down my throat, hitting my gag reflex. The effect was Coulson's hands at the back of my head, applying enough pressure so that my teeth grazed his cock, tongue whipping wildly against the musky, silky skin. I pushed down, holding the base of his cock so that it struck deeper down the slide of my throat, missing my gag reflex to flutter in the muscles down my neck.

"Fuck." Ward whimpered.

Coulson tries to lift his hips again, but I shove his ass back down onto the seat. Clucking so that my tongue swipes up and down his cock, I said, "Nah, Coulson. Be still." Bending my head, I puckered my lips to fit the curve of his mushroom head. Teeth swiping against the sensitive flesh, I reached down the root of his cock to graze his balls. Finding the spot behind, I pressed so that Phil actually jolted forward and gasped.

His dick slid, bumping against the roof of my mouth sticky, and I swallowed the precome he was leaking. Tongue extended, waiting for another taste, Coulson squeezed out a pearly drop and placed it on my tongue. Swallowing loudly, I let Coulson run his cock's precome down my cheek and around my lips in concentric circles.

"Does baby want another taste?" Phil teased, voice filthily happy. I nodded. "Baby's gonna have to beg, won't he Ward?"

Turning, Ward's hand was massaging his own crotch. He nodded, grin split down the middle of his face. "Baby gonna have to be nice and loud, too."

Wrapping my fingers around his cock, tongue out to lick the slit, I grovelled, his cock down my throat, voice vibrating against it, "Baby gonna do whatever the hell he wants." I reached a hand out to Ward, blindly. "Ain't that right?"

Ward's hand guided me to touch his cock. I rolled my palm down the zipper. Phil growled, slapping me on the wrist. Smiling over my head, he said, "Sorry, I don't like to share."

I pressed the flat of my tongue against the underside of his cock, impaling my throat on his cock. Bobbing my head up and down, gathering slick saliva, Phil graciously pet my hair. "Good b—" I growled, teeth sinking into his cock threateningly. "Bad! Bad boy!" I hummed in approval, allowing him to rub the swollen head in a sticky fresh trail down my cheek until it popped back into my mouth.

Tongue coming away with a fine thread of come, I gulped down Coulson's big cock, moaning and grunting and sliding my hand up Phil's bare chest to pluck along his chest hairs, while my other hand stuck to his solid thigh. He rutted harder against me, rolling his hips to hit a spot behind my gullet where my gag finally set off.

The reward was too hot to be true. Coulson grabbed the back of my head, yanking me further down onto his cock so that my throat muscles massaged his cock eloquently. "Shit!" He cursed. "I'm so—"

I slapped his hard cock to my lips. "Shh!" Wrapping my lips back around the head, I worked my jaw until it hurt and kept up suction, licking, biting and sucking the skin all around his cock. The slit opened up a new string of precome, which Phil fed me. Complaining audibly, I salved his fingers until the bitter, salty taste was gone, and I had to suck down Phil's cock further to repeat the taste.

Drooling, hands clutching my thighs, I buried my nose into his pubes.

"Oh, Nate." Phil sang, come splattering down my throat. "Ooh," He goaded more of his cock down my throat, my tongue collecting his come to swish around my teeth. Once the spasming was done, which felt like forever, I opened my mouth to show him his come. He stole a kiss before I tweaked his nipple and pushed him back, making sure my cloth-clad thighs rubbed against the softening skin.

Sliding into Ward's lap so I was straddling him, I bent my head to the crook of his neck to concentrate on the road while he bucked into me, our cocks grazing heavenly. Seizing Coulson's arm, which was tucking his cock back into his pants, I splat it on the steering wheel and Coulson drove.

Hooking my fingers into Ward's shoulders, his hands went to the small of my back, nails pinching in, and we kissed. His lips were soft against mine, softer than Coulson's, and easily palpable against my tongue. The come collected on it flowed down into Ward's mouth. Once the taste hit his tongue, he thrust into my mouth. His tongue stroked along mine, easily, lazily. Parting the kiss, he angled our lips to smack again, come dribbling down my chest.

"Allow me," Ward said, scooping down the come drizzling down my open-buttoned chest with his broad tongue. In between swipes, he said, brusquely, "When we will we have _our _fun?"

I patted his shoulder, exchanging another come-filled kiss where our lips parting were the only sound filling the car, gliding like a song where the notes were brushes of tongues and an easy-going widening of the jaw, eating each other hungrily.

Coulson's come digested between us, as I did not think I could handle that much spunk on my own, I said, "When we don't have an exploding man to deal with." And I slid off his lap. He snuck a last kiss, sucking my lips into his mouth until the world dissolved and it was only the musky taste of come on his dirty lips, and nothing more.

I pushed myself back so that Coulson could finally put his cock back in place and Ward took the steering wheel. "When will that be?" He muttered, parking the car.

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><p><strong>Hope you enjoyed it!<strong>

**I know the sex scenes are really short, but I'm not that experienced at writing them. I'll get better with time. I don't want anyone thinking Nate's a slut, because, really he's not. His sexuality is just looser than some other's.**

**Don't forget to review! XOXO**


	10. AUTHOR'S NOTE

I'm taking a short hiatus from this fanfiction for a multitude of reasons. Mostly because I'm having difficulties navigating it properly. While I've only posted the chapters for the first episode, I'm currently writing 5 ahead and just trying to progress Nate, not only as a spy, but as a person. That's what I'm finding difficult-he's becoming unrealistically unlikable all-too-quickly and I don't like what he's becoming so I'm going to have to take some time to sort out his future, what he really wants. Hopefully, the new Avengers movie will help me figure it out and we'll see Natasha's past, which will help guide Nate's future. But currently, he's just on rocky ground with his present position and desires. His future's not looking too great, at the moment, so I'm going to try to unmuddle everything and as my other not-so-popular fic, Trust The Instinct (sequel to formerly Never Love A Wild Thing, name changed to Love. Be Afraid), is so close to finishing I'm going to try and pull that through.

My main worry is that Nate is just hovering sort of in-and-out of the episodes, he's got no real purpose and I'm trying to tie strings to him and the other characters but it's not working out. As they say, you don't realize what you have until it's gone, so I may have to pull Nate out of the team for a bit so he can join back full-force.

Lastly, I just want to say that my small tease with the genderbend!Catwoman in Arrow fic isn't coming to life. I'm not saying it never will, as I'm having so many difficulties putting Nate, who's a genderbend of Natasha, into Agents of SHIELD, I'm just wary of what Catwoman(or man) would do to the Arrow series. The cat-and-mouse thing would be fun to write, but what about the mouse bit, what will I do with a character who's an antihero and half the time loves the main guy, but the other time wants to claw his face? You feel? It's just going to need some work. Thanks to Anne Hathaway, who portrayed The Cat in the latest Batman film, it's a lot easier and has more room than Nate as a character to explore, but in the near-future it won't be published any time soon. Some of you may remember my Supernatural fic Touching In The Dark, where peroxide twins vowed to kill Sam and Dean's father because of a hunting mishap that ended up killing their father. It's back, with a lot of inspiritaion and ambition. Unfortunately, it's a little short. I'm making it half the season long, so where the show has 22 episodes for seasons 1-2 (not 3, it only has 16), then for 4,5 and 6 it has 22 but gains one additional episode for seasons 7-9, I'll be making it 12 chapters for seasons 1-2, I'll wing season 3, and have 12 up until season 7 where I'll add maybe 3 to make it 15. I stopped writing it because it was full of flaws, but it's back on track to release on... sometime next year? It's not all crystal-clear, but it's in the works.


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